NEW YORK—NBC and Canada’s
CBC-TV celebrated the belated return
of NHL hockey by launching
technological innovations. At NBC,
the first broadcast on Jan. 19 was
anchored by the first “NHL Live”
broadcast from the NBC Sports
Group’s new 300,000 square-foot
International Broadcasting Center
in Stamford, Conn. At CBC, “Hockey
Night in Canada”’s return included
the introduction of “Hockey Night
in Canada: 2nd Screen,” an interactive
social media feature staged in
real-time during the broadcast.

IBC READY FOR ITS CLOSEUP

Currently being built inside a renovated
former Clairol hair color factory,
the NBC Sports Group IBC and
headquarters will be the new home
of NBC Sports, NBC Sports Network,
NBC Olympics, NBC Sports
Digital and NBC Sports Networks.
The consolidation brings together
NBC’s sports operations based at
Rockefeller Center in New York and
Landmark Square and Harbor Drive
in Stamford with Comcast’s sports
properties at the Comcast Center in
Philadelphia.

“It’s the first time since we
merged with Comcast that all of our
sports properties will be under one
roof,” said Dave Mazza, senior vice
president and CTO of NBC Sports
Group and NBC Olympics. When
completed later this year, the IBC
will be home to more than 500 employees,
working out of six studios,
six master control rooms,
one newsroom, 50 edit rooms,
and 50 graphics stations. Renovation
of the former shampoo
factory began in February 2012.
When finished, the IBC will
have more than 1,000 miles of broadcasting and networking cable deployed
across its 33-acre campus.

After news of the NHL’s return to hockey
came out in January, NBC scrambled to
get one of the three recently completed
studios checked out for air. Given that the
new facility was spurred into life by NBC/Versus signing a 10-year deal with the NHL
in 2011—committing NBC to build a studio
for the NHL Network—pushing up
the deadline made sense. Still, “it was a scramble during the past two weeks,” said
Mazza. “We had to do all the final checks of
the finer points, such as the monitor walls,
lighting, transmission feeds in and out of
the building.”

In a bid to reduce costs, NBC is re-using
much of the production equipment
it had deployed in London for the 2012
Summer Olympics. Put back into service
are Sony HDC-2400L 3-chip 2/3-inch CCD
1080i/720p cameras, Sony DVS-7000 digital
switchers, EVS media servers, Calrec audio
consoles, Avid Media Composer/Nitris
systems, and an Avid Media Asset Management
(MAM) system.

Despite the last-minute scramble, the
first IBC broadcast of “NHL Live” “was surprisingly
uneventful,” Mazza said. “The guys
from the SportsNet [formerly Comcast
SportsNet] facility had been coming over
for two to three weeks, getting things configured
to their liking. By the time Jan. 19th
arrived, they had already blocked their
shots in-studio, and were quite comfortable
when we went to air.”

CBC DIVES INTO SECOND SCREEN

The late start of the 2012-2013 NHL season
marks the 60th year of telecasting for
Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC), still one
of this hockey-mad country’s most popular
programs. To mark the occasion, the CBC
is plunging into live social media with its
“Hockey Night in Canada: 2nd Screen”
(HNIC:2S) app.

Designed for viewers watching the
game at home while glancing at their
smartphones, tablets, or laptop computers,
HNIC:2S is a serious attempt to keep
these eyeballs completely glued to the CBC’s product. During the broadcast,
viewers log into HNIC:2S via their Facebook accounts. Once online, they can answer
skill-testing questions, predict team/
player performance to win prizes both
weekly and at season’s end, plus connect with other fans via Facebook and Twitter
in real time. HNIC:2S also includes a live NHL scoreboard of all games being played
at the time, a live Twitter feed from the
broadcast, and a schedule of upcoming
HNIC broadcasts on CBC.

The new NBC Sports Group headquarters and International Broadcast Center will bring NBC Sports, NBC Sports Network, NBC Olympics, NBC Sports Digital, and NBC Regional Networks all under one roof. Set on a 33-acre campus, the 300,000 square foot complex will be the new home of NBC Sports Group’s studios, production, operations and administrative offices.

“This app gives viewers
a way to play along
with ‘Hockey Night in
Canada,’” said Trevor
Pilling, HNIC’s executive
producer. HNIC
takes the second screen
audience so seriously,
that the people managing
the HNIC:2S content
have been added
to HNIC’s main master
control room crew in
Toronto.

In the near future,
HNIC will be made available
to Xbox viewers.
CBC is tailoring a package
of content for this
particular audience, including “near instant”
three-minute highlight packs after
each game, scores, schedules, and a Weekly
Top 5 featuring the best saves, goals and
plays of the week.

Of course, some things won’t change at
HNIC. One of these is commentator Don
Cherry, former Bruins coach and an icon
among Canadians for his plain-spoken
views. Speaking on HNIC’s Jan. 19 return,
Cherry said, “I suggested and guaranteed
you that they [the NHL] would start January
15th. I was four days out. Guaranteed!
The only one!”

Another is “Hockey Night in Canada
Punjabi” (HNICP) and its weekly Saturday
night doubleheader. Hosted by Harnarayan
Singh with analysts Bhola Chauhan and
Inderpreet Cumo, HNICP is broadcast nationally
via Canadian cable and satellite TV
carriers, and online at CBCSports.ca. According
to the 2011 Canadian census, Punjabi
is the most-spoken-at-home immigrant
language in Canada, followed by Chinese,
Cantonese and Spanish.

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